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Tillis & NCGA approval ratings underwater

The latest PPP poll headlines are about Kay Hagan having a lead over Thom Tillis in the US Senate race. Expect that to fluctuate.

Some of the other results beyond that headline are quite interesting:

The poll found 18 percent of voters approve of the job the N.C. General Assembly is doing, while 54 percent disapprove.

That's right, for every five people you meet on the street, only one of them approves of what the NCGA is doing. That's abysmal. For the most part, that same one person out of five thinks "Big-Boy Pants" Thom is doing a good job.

Tillis, the Republican House Speaker, had a favorability rating of 23 percent, while 45 percent of voters rated him unfavorably.

Must be those "traditional voters" who think Thom's doing a good job. Looks like he's got the "divide" part down pat, but not so much the "conquer" part.

Perhaps one reason the NCGA's approval rating is swirling around the porcelain bowl is because their laws and policies are so obviously in conflict with what most North Carolinians want.

• The poll asked what the best way was to give raises to teachers: 12 percent said eliminate teaching assistants as the Senate budget proposes, 19 percent said sell more lottery tickets as the House proposes, and 55 percent said raise taxes on people who earn more than $250,000 a year (and 14 percent said they didn’t know).

• The state’s new fracking law, which ended a moratorium and cleared the way for issuing permits 61 days after safety rules are adopted, got the support of 29 percent of voters, while 38 percent were opposed.

That's right, neither the House's nor the Senate's stupid ways of paying for teacher raises garner any appreciable support, and a majority of people told legislators precisely how to pay for teacher raise: repeal Art Pope's tax cut.

That's the one thing the NC GOP will never do. And in spite of clear evidence that people really, really dislike what they're doing, they keep doing more of the same.

Combine that with the candidates who face opposition but are virtually guaranteed victory because of heavily gerrymandered districts, and you end up with a majority of people who know that the voters won't kick them out. Therefore, they can be accountable to ALEC and the KochPopes rather than to the people.

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"I will have a priority on building relationships with the minority caucus. I want to put substance behind those campaign speeches." -- Thom Tillis, Nov. 5, 2014

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